Hail Mary
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. He had grown up learning the rosary, but he'd never cared for it. But his fingers worked over the worn beads regardless, sitting vigil, praying for her. Chameron angst-fest.


A/N, this is what going to church twice in one day will do to you, started last night after being dragged to a Catholic mass, and praying the rosary for the first time in over a decade, it got me thinking about Chase. And Chameron. Hence, this little angst-fest.  


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_Hail Mary, full of grace_

He had grown up learning the rosary. It was simply something that they taught every good Catholic boy. In Sunday School and CCD, the prayers were taught. Ten Hail Marys and an Our Father, lather, rinse repeat. The mysteries were taught, all fifteen of them, and what they were supposed to meditate on when praying each one. When he had gotten to seminary, each was convered more in depth, attempting to solve the mysteries that formed the backbone of the faith.

But he'd never enjoyed it. To him, it was something that the old ladies and the nuns did at church, while waiting for the service to start. He'd been an altar boy, always there bright and early before the service began, and he'd see them all there, reciting each prayer, lips moving but no sound coming out. It was something to do as pennance when he sinned, it wasn't something that was made to be comforting, simply something to be done as punishment.

_The Lord is with thee_

But he found his hands working over the small beads as he sat there, unsure of what else to be doing. It had been so long since he had last prayed upon one that he had to remember the words to the most common prayer of them, and found himself tripping and stumbling over the first decade of beads. Each time growing more and more sure as the prayers reaffirmed themselves in his mind. It was something to be doing to take his mind off of other things. But by the time he had gotten to the second decade, he found it to be such second nature to him, that his mind was wandering. This was why they had you meditate on the mysteries when you learned it.

But he found himself meditating not on the joyous, or luminous, or sorrowful, or glorious, but rather on the sinful. On his own life, and on hers, and how maybe if he had been a better person, that God would have spared her, or maybe, if he had been worse, that God would have taken him instead. Wondering what it was that made the good die young. The world killed everyone, impartially, but it seemed to take the very good ones first, and leaving the rest to rot in hell on earth.

He was praying now, because he was lost, and it was something comforting that brought him back to his youth. Something that reminded him of a better time-before he realized what his mother was, when his mother used to sit there, and pray the rosary with him, when his father was still proud of the choirboy, the altar boy, before his father decided to run off on his life, and before his mother sank into herself.

It was a strange comfort, to be able to fall back on faith. He had given up on seminary because he knew that he would make an awful priest-he had wanted to do it to help people, because he wanted to be there for people, to save others from becoming his mother. He learned all too quickly that it was impossible to be as altruistic as he wanted to be, and as naivety turned to world-weary cynicism, his faith had eroded, but it was nice to have it to fall back on, to feel as though there was something bigger than him to believe in, to put his trust in, and hope that maybe if he prayed hard enough, it would make things all right. It was something to give him hope.

_Blessed are thou amongst women_

Because right now, hope was the only thing he had. It was funny, how they had played such a game of cat-and-mouse, before finally giving in. But she had, and he had, and if what they had wasn't love, then it was a damn good impersonator of it. And she was lying there, pale and damp, threatening to break what tenuous holds over emotion that he had. If there was a way that there relationship would end, he would have never thought it would be like this. He had pictured a gradual disintegration, or a huge blow-up, but he never pictured it ending like this.

Always, it ended in the hospital. But it was never supposed to be like this. She was supposed to have been the angel, the saint. Saint Alison, that's who she was. Someone who was always hopeful, always a bright spot no matter what was going on-so naieve, so refusing to give in and tell someone they were dying. She always held out hope that things would improve. He had never imagined her coming into her own ER, the place where she ruled with an iron fist, but a compassionate heart.

It didn't end with tubes and blood, and a steadily declining set of blips on an LCD. It was supposed to end with them fighting loudly in the hallway, or just the sudden realization that while what they had had been fun, it was time to move on. She was supposed to keep on going, keep on doing her good, because that was what she did. She spread goodwill and cheer with her. She was like the sun, although he was not like the east, a bright spot on an eternally dark horizon, a speck of promise to all who came through.

She was blessed, to be able to do what she did, and never once allow herself to become jaded, bitter, cynical. She came close, of course, but she always had hope. It was something that she had never lost, and something that he was currently in danger of loosing. His fingers worked around the chain, never stopping, his lips moving soundlessly, as he sat there, each prayer uttered without any concious thought as to what he was saying.

_And blessed is the fruit of thy womb_

Because he was partly to blame for this. He had a role in this-if it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have ever gotten knocked up, she would have never had a parasite growing inside of her, slowly strangling her from the inside out. He had stopped thinking about it as a child when he found out what it was doing to her. No, this thing could not be a child, this thing could not be a blessed miracle, this thing was a parasite, leaching life away from someone who mattered much more. They could, if they wanted to, always have another child-it was easy to have more than one. But in order for that to happen, she needed to be alive.

Besides, every obstetrician in the hospital had already said that it was dead in the womb to begin with-it was simply there, leeching life away from her, as though it could revive itself by killing her. No one wanted to operate though-it was riskier than waiting to see if it would pass on its own, as though it was a kidney stone. Waiting to see if she would expel this parasite that was slowly sucking her dry from the inside out.

He never wanted children anyway. Sure, he was good with kids, but it didn't mean that he'd make a good _father._ It was why he had wanted to go into seminary to start with-he was faithful, or at least he had been, he had never wanted to marry or have children, and he liked the benefits. He had no problems with the idea of devoting his life to god, but that had been before he had discovered sex, and the wonderful world of the female body. Which was exactly what got him into this mess.

He'd gladly give up the chance to have a child with her to simply have her. He'd rather her be barren and sterile and alive. There was always adoption, although they had seen first hand how hard it was to actually find a child-Cuddy had proven that point for them. But there was always the hope. He'd rather her consent to the damn surgery and yank the whole works out, and solve everything right there, than risk losing her, but she wanted to wait. And he was respecting her wishes.

_Holy Mary, mother of God_

Even as she lay there, put out to avoid the worst of the pain, she looked angelic. And he had also seen first hand the results of signing someone over to a surgery that they didn't want. He had seen what it had done to House, and he refused to let that happen to her. He wasn't going to risk snuffing out what made Cameron, Cameron. Her eternal hope that people were in fact, good. That evil was the exception to the rule, and that people were inherently altruistic. That was what he had fallen in love with her for, and that was what he refused to let her lose.

So he sat there, fingers counting the beads over and over again, he'd lost track of how many times he'd gone round. Three? Four? It took him barely twenty minutes to work through all five decades, and back down the stem to the creed and back up again. He paused slightly and the central bead, trying to remember the words to the Hail Holy Queen before he gave up and cheated, skipping it each time. If he never actually _stopped_ going around, then he wouldn't have to pray it, would he?

_Pray for us sinners_

He couldn't help but wonder if there was something he could have done to make this better, to save her. If this was his fault for being a bad man and turning his back on his faith. If this was supposed to be a test of his faith. He had sinned, and he had sinned multiple times. And never had he repented. Was this a punishment for that? It was a guilt that lingered in the back of his mind-good, old fashioned, catholic guilt in it's purest form.

He hadn't been to confession in the better part of a decade. He'd always avoided it, to him, it was pointless. God knew if you sinned, he'd know if you repented for your sins, there was no point in going through an intermediary, in a tight, closed, booth, and he didn't see how saying thirty hail marys got him out of anything. But right now, he was busy going over the rosary over and over and over again, as though doing all his pennance for all his sins at once would somehow resolve this whole issue. As though it would suddenly make things better.

He had sinned, and she had too, but right now what he craved most wasn't the absolution of his sins, but the ignorance of them, so that she could improve, so that she could heal. So that the blips on the LCD wouldn't be steadily declining. So that things would improve.

_Now and at the hour of our death_

He didn't want to think about what the worst could bring. He didn't want to even consider the idea of her dying. It simply wouldn't happen. She was Saint Allison, she was the perfect one, she couldn't die, she had never really sinned-her only sins were done for the good of the people. She wouldn't die, she simply couldn't. Even as the blips were getting further and further apart on the mointors, he refused to admit that she was dying, she wasn't going to die.

He wasn't praying for himself, he was praying for her. But even in telling himself that he was dong this for her, he knew he was being selfish. He was praying for himself, because he had put so much of himself into her, into this relationship. Somewhere along the way, he had lost himself in favor of _them_, this wasn't about him, but it was about both of them, and about keeping _her_ alive, and doing whatever it took to save her. No, not whatever it took, he didn't want to see her turned into a bitter shell of what she was.

So he sat, keeping vigil next to her, the worn wooden beads working their way through his hands as he prayed, reciting the familiar prayers. Ten Hail Marys followed by an Our Father, lather, rinse, repeat. Lips moving, but no sound coming out, a steady background noise in his head that allowed him instead to meditate, and think of what they were, and what they would be, because she wouldn't die, she was Saint Allison, and he was praying so that someone would realize that she was needed in the world, and save her. Because she couldn't die. And he'd keep working his way around the decades, not caring about the mysteries, only caring selfishly about his own future, because he couldn't picture himself without her.

_Amen_


End file.
